Saturday, 10 September 2016

America's smackhead crisis

Springsteen's ballads have chronicled the life of America's rustbelt heartland, Deer Hunter country, from Vietnam to today's angry, resentful, dispossessed class that has missed out on all the benefits of globalisation. One of those 'benefits' is the flood of cheap, potent and illegal narcotics organized so efficiently that increased demand in Chicago will have Afghani opium farmers planting extra fields three months later. Mexico is now one huge opium plantation, Afghan production is 36% higher than at 9/11 and the working-class rustbelt lovers of Springsteen's ballads are now comatose in the seats of their Chevy from over-strength smack. I'm expecting any day for heroin deaths in the States to exceed those from gun-shot wounds, though there will be no smack lobby blaming syringes for the deaths. I've written before, I loathe the effects of Class As with a visceral hatred. I loathe the slick, glib City culture, coked-up in City pubs, the drug burning them out until they find themselves at the age of forty with their personal stuff in a cardbox box being escorted from the building by security. I loathe the wheedling, desperate immorality of smackheads ready to steal, cheat, lie and betray everything for their next fix. I loathe the blackened putrescent corpses distorted in unhuman rictus is old squats, cheap bedsits, bin stores. It's very hard to square this hatred that wants to see a complete end to these Class As for the misery they cause with a Libertarian approach. And there will be middle class apologists for the filth that can manage its use; weekend junk users, using sterile syringes in the comfort of professional and Bohemian middle class homes. A world famous YBA used to bring his smackhead chums into the Colony Room. Wojas lost many friends, including me. Now I see that artist's fat mug in the papers with his wife and lovable kiddies all in Hunter wellies at their Georgian country house celebrating middle aged domesticity. I saw him with his trousers and pants round his ankles and a chicken bone stuffed under his foreskin giggling like a maniac whilst his mate shot-up in the khazi. Trump-voting America is in a smack crisis. It's way worse than people realise. Not only the welfare, the futures and the families of the victims - and yes, I actually think the term can be used here - concerns and worries me, but the well-being of our own vast cohort of losers from globalisation, all part of the 17m. We MUST ensure they can see some tangible benefit from Brexit - we MUST give them hope.

Globalisation--in the sense of SOME work going to third world --and increasingly former 3rd world --countries is not the problem. Doing work that they can do cheaper benefits them and us. Productive economic activity anywhere benefits all. The formerly poor then have money to spend on ALL goods and services which include OURS. The mercantilism you seem to advocate is destructive-- not something that will solve our problems.

As some jobs go oversees more should be created here in new industries using high-tech in which we have and advantage over less developed nations.

That hasn't happened.

Why?

* Thieving taxes* Endless bullshit cost/difficulty increasing regulations both EU and domestic--and increasingly international sponsored by leftist scum like the UN.*The scummy state draining massive quantities of capital into their shite but supposedly "safe" bonds. The seedcorn of the future is going to help our oppressors oppress us.* Zero interest rates so the state can borrow even more cash.Zero incentive to save.*Economic bubbles coming as a consequence of the ever-growing states attempts to live far beyond its means.* Vast state malinvestment in legions of nutty cack-handed "projects"*And of course the waste and distortion caused by welfare-ism. A massive disincentive to work and legions of costs thro bastardy, crime and social disruption.*Useless state schools and a population ever dumber and thus ever more prey to: *Endless leftist propaganda from the BBC and all other non Net media.*Most esp the poisonous anti-science, anti-business propaganda of watermelon eco-freak scum who have managed to extinguish our bright hopes for the future that were so strong in the 50s and 60s.

Those are the cause of our problems. Those reasons are why we are not creating the vibrant new industries of the future.

I find little sympathy or empathy for the self-inflicted woes of addicts. It could be resolved by either legalising it or poisoning it - either way the vast majority of people would simply carry on as normal and the world would (eventually) be a nicer place.

Considering the deaths and misery caused by 'legal' addictions (alcohol and tobacco) it is somewhat cynical to feel angst for people exercising their freedom of choice to ruin their own lives.

Mr Ecks,Add to your list the eco-loons who have taxed energy so that an automated factory here cannot compete with an automated factory on the other side of the world - and they have to ship the stuff here. Forget about wage cost differentials.Peter Hitchens has a thing about cannabis, and blames it for RoP actions. He may be right, I certainly don't know. But the stuff stinks, it makes people barmy, and probably sick as well. Even the humble ciggie stinks. Maybe lacking a sense of smell was useful pre-deodorants, when a bar of carbolic soap was all there was, and people didn't wash their clothes much, but you can't have it now.I speak as one who always tries to fart when leaving an empty lift! ;)

And as usual a bad situation is made much worse by the government. Nobody would argue that drug taking is good for you, but I would argue that 75% of the harm arising from drug use are a consequence of their illegality.

Prohibition has done nothing to limit the supply or consumption. And it prevents adequate treatment, it makes drugs seem cool, and the illicit supply chain causes the deaths of thousands.

It is false to claim the libertarian card for hard drug use. Illegal drugs like ecstasy can lead to death after one dose. All the hard drugs lead to the inability to function properly in society and most lead to addiction. The consequences for family, friends, victims of drug-users' crimes, and the taxpayer are extensive and severe.

Even if these drugs were "legalised" and supplied by "reputable" pharmacological firms their cost would be high (probably higher than blackmarket suppliers) and, because the users become unable to hold down a job properly, crime would still be part of their death cycle.

I am no fan of Piers Morgan by any stretch of the imagination, but his piece in the DM today tracing a lot of the expansion in usage of heroin in the US to the legalisation of OxyContin in 1995, makes a lot of sense. Getting people 'addicted' to legally prescribed painkillers and anti-depressants has started a lot more people onto a downward spiral.

Look to the Govt. and so called 'health' industry as much as the pushers of illegal substances, let alone the newer synthetic drugs. A elephant tranquilliser drug shouldn't even be available to anyone except a licensed vet. Hardly surprising some of this stuff can't even be tested in the field. One sniff and a drug seeking dog is dead, the equivalent of a snowflake is death to any human. Gives a whole new meaning to 'special snowflake' now.

Take your point but Clinton-voting America is largely black and Hispanic and between them they do most of the supplying - hence the reason why 93 per cent of blacks are killed by blacks in that country.

Putin had the problem solved within a matter of months - he sent the Spetsnaz in. He cares about his people.

I have no idea what you're talking about, Raedwald. I guess that's what comes of never having taken drugs. Silly me, I thought the dem/hilary voters were all academic Marxists-Communists. Mind you, I suspect many of them of the occasional binge of some kind or another - but I've never checked any of it out.

I remember what it was like in the UK when heroin was legal... There were a few hundred addicts/losers in London. They used to hang around Piccadilly Circus and wait for their next fix from Boots... Apart from being a tragic situation for those addicts, they were harmless enough.

Then there were a couple of hundred 'functioning' addicts, indeed my wife (a young nurse) used to work with a top surgeon in one of the London teaching hospitals who was in that position.

Then in 1965, after a bunch of lefty do-gooders decided that this scandal must be stopped, Wilson was persuaded to 'act' and he made its use and sale to registered addicts a crime...

...For obvious reasons, the pyramid selling method and the twofer method being prominent... there were thousands of addicts, not afraid of thieving, lying, prostituting and anything else seedy and unacceptable became commonplace... And the bodies started to pile up, and it has only got worse over the years.

Since prohibition, we have not benefitted at all, and neither have those that succumb to these revolting substances.

It's pretty much a guarantee that government interference will make things worse, and what's more, we who aren't afflicted will have to pay for it.

Right-writes, You cannot be sure that "Since prohibition, we have not benefited at all ..." because society has changed dramatically since the early 1960s. Heroin may have been restricted to a few rich "Bohemians" (a quaint concept nowadays), but its use would have expanded, in the more open society then developing, without prohibition.

Suppose hard drugs are legalised: who supplies them? Is that legalised and over the counter, like tobacco? Or de-criminalised, but their supply restricted like most medicinal drugs? Whichever route is chosen these drugs will be more freely available, good old free-market supply and demand will kick in, and their use will increase. Moreover, you can be sure that the "illegal" supplies will continue; there's enough counterfeiting of legitimate branded goods already to show that.

The reason that heroin was made illegal is that it damages the user and consequently has an impact on the user's relations, friends and also society. It is not a victimless pastime. Even if you don't care about the consequences to the user and others around him, the NHS will end up picking up the pieces, which means the tax-payer, again.

I almost always agree with your understanding, but I do not agree with you on this ocassion. What right do you have to be disgusted? The fact is that your disgust says more about you than it does about those people who enjoy cocaine or heroin. You wish to persecute users by prosecuting suppliers. You have put yourself in the cleft stick. Proaecute suppliers but ignore users. How do you know that users would be better off if the did not use? How do YOU know that? Why is is that YOUR decisions should be better than the decisions of users? Are you God? Perhaps you have God-like ideas about the sinfulness of cocaine etc.